Altered Rebirth
by decidueye1234
Summary: Add has lost all of his friends because of his own actions during his ascent to being Mad Paradox. What he doesn't expect is for the pull of another world to show him that he is not a lost cause even if he believes himself to be.


Prologue~

Add was a complex and disturbed soul and everyone that's ever had the "honor" of meeting him can agree on that. While he wasn't the worst person you could ever meet he was one of the least reasonable and could be pretty cruel when facing people that stood against him. This cruelty and lack of remorse often made others wary of him and with his tendency to stay in the backgrounds people avoided him at a single glance. This didn't bother him at first because of his time isolated from the rest of the world within the Ancient Library but when he finally left his temporary haven and made his bargain with Wally he was able to observe other people by watching the El Search party.

At first he didn't really care about the group and kept his mind focused on wally because the shady man constantly gave off the an untrustworthy vibe that only got worse the more he worked with him. His initial reason for working with him was simply the nasods he detected in the castle, the man was so deranged that even he could tell even with his limited exposure to other people. When add saw him creating his faulty nasods he thought of a plan to find out more information on how he was creating them. Add offered to give Wally blueprints in exchange for information and the fool agreed almost instantly so greedy for more knowledge he didn't even try looking into adds background. When the whereabouts of the Altera Core were revealed to him he was simply content with letting the fool play mad scientist in the castle as he prepared to venture out for the true prize.

Soon after his preparations were complete they entered the picture a group of young adventurous souls with more combat experience than anyone he has ever seen before. They crushed every obstacle that came in their way all while working together and advancing as a united force.

Add had only seen virtual recordings of warriors and mages in combat during his time in the library and seeing them fight in real time was something new to him. When they reached the end and defeated wally he knew that his time there was over so when wally was making his escape I took all of his data and made my escape without being detected.

"Thinking back I never did expect to see them again, let alone become one of them…" said a slightly nostalgic add. He enjoyed being with the party even if he would never admit it to any of the other members. Sadly he knows that his time with them is coming to an end at an ever increasing rate, because add can feel himself coming apart each and every day. The side effects of his own research into the science of time manipulation have already altered his physical appearance and his health. While not even the most sensitive members can detect it Add can feel himself slipping away mentally and growing weaker physically. His thoughts have slowly became focused on his family and the life he used to have all those years ago when they were all together and he was in his Mothers warm embrace. The desire to return grew to the point that he even stopped attempting to create his own Nasods and just researched time travel.

He would question Glaive whenever the chance presented itself and would even ask Ain how it felt being within Henir's time and space watching the ages pass. With time he stopped paying attention to the other members and started adapting his dynamos to his new designs hoping that one of them would prove to be the lucky one that could bring his obsession to reality. When he realized that the component he required to finish his new dynamos was in the Ponggos possession he had moral contradiction on his hands. His desire to return was a burning flame within him so strong that he couldn't even imagine himself having being so obsessed on obtaining Eve. He wanted to just take what he needed and destroy everything that stood in his way, but the time he spent with his friends has caused him to feel enough reluctance to that plan to even try. This contradiction within himself would force him to spend days on end obsessing on the issue and trying to think of an alternative but in the end he came to only one solution…

When the party was visiting Ponggos on their quest for the El Add silently slipped off using his dynamos to erase his own sounds and made his way to their inner keep. He used his dynamos as a form of alarm near the entrance and made his way to his desired material and grabbed as much as he could. When he had taken all that he could carry the dynamos came flying back to him as a ponggo screamed out at him calling for assistance. For a moment Add was stunned and could only stare stupidly at the incoming guards as the nearby civilians panicked outside. Breaking out of his trance he quickly made his way to the nearest window boosting himself out with a dynamo empowered jump and glided to an empty spot far away from the keep. Add's thoughts were in chaos as he realized the severity of what he had just done and all the consequences that would follow because of his own selfishness. His party members could only stare at his shrinking form unable to believe that the guy that they had just fought together with for all these years had just committed a crime against the Ponggos even after all the ponggos had done for them.

Add's mindset only worsened when he took a glance at the others back at the keep, they were all looking at his direction with various looks on their faces. Elsword and Rena had a shocked look on their faces while raven had a sad look in his eyes. Aisha was furious no doubt believing him to be a filthy traitor while eve simply looked at him with a disappointed look in her eyes…

For some reason he couldn't explain Add found hers to be the worse out of all of them combined. With the realization that he couldn't turn back he silently made his way into the nearby plains trying to gain as much distance from the only people he could call family in that foreign age. He kept going forward on an unending advance away from altera not caring about how much dynamo energy he was using or how tired he became her kept going and going onward until slowly his eyes shut.

When he awoke he found himself alone in an empty ruin devoid of life as far as his eyes could see. At first he panicked as his worries grew more and more by the second, he couldn't tell where he was, couldn't go back to the others, couldn't stand himself for being so weak, and above all of that he hated being alone. The lack of any signs of life caused him to remember his earlier days alone in the library with only the records to keep him company. After all his time adventuring with the others such memories no longer brought anything positive to the surface and caused him only sadness. After a while even that sadness would go, leaving him with only fear and paranoia about what is to come. He knows that the others would search for him and he knows that the Ponggos would desire justice for his crimes. Add felt as if everyone in the world had given up on him leaving him all alone. With nothing left to rely on he found his thought brought back to the thing that ruined him from the start and took out the materials he stole. With a sad and morbid determination to make something out of all the misfortune he began to work on his new dynamos using his old ones as a base.

When they were complete he found himself exposed to a disturbing phenomenon as his dynamos came online. When the last one activated the world as Add knew it came to a halt, he watched on in shock as the air felt strange and the sky seemed to slowly lose its color. The wind was gone and the debris on the floor simply stopped moving in the exact place it used to be leaving only Add capable of movement. This alone wouldn't have disturbed him if not for the fact that add began to see things. It was as if he had been drugged somehow as visions of walls and restored chairs and carpets would appear in the place of his destroyed surroundings. He could even hear voices speaking in the background silently as if whispering about the past that he could not hear no matter how hard he tried. The longer he stayed in that frozen world the more weary and unhinged he became, it was as if some great force was going to come down upon him if he did not cease his actions and rejoin the present world. Add felt that he had seen enough and was just about to deactivate the dynamos when an unknown burst of power entered them shocking him as they entered their maximum proficiency distorting his surroundings. Add felt his physical form become something "more" that day as if a whole new reality had revealed itself to him and it was everyone else that could not see it. When the power finally ran out add was a changed man, it was almost like he became a different person with only slight similarities to his old self. The rational man he believed himself to be had broken leaving behind something colder and more driven by desire, because of his new found motivation his mind quickly became clouded as he filled it with new experiments and procedures he could try in the future. It was as if his worries had vanished as he decided to keep moving forward and leaving his current life behind in his desire to return to the past.


End file.
